We all know that exercise or exercise program like Fit, Healthy, Happy Mum, FitDad and SCPF has dozens if not, hundreds of benefits. But how sure are you that you’re doing your workout regimen safely and correctly?

Our body is composed of thousands of nerves, endless strands of muscle fibers and hundreds of bones and we only have one chance to take care of it… two if you’re really ‘lucky’.

And what better way to consider the longevity of our body through proper form and execution of different types of exercises.

If you want to avoid the following injuries from working out…

• Sprained ankle
• Shoulder injury
• Knee injuries
• Muscle pull and strain

Read on and find out how not only to avoid an injury but also maintain a healthy and safe training…

Warm Up

This is often overlooked by both experienced and newbies alike. It is never a good idea to workout muscles that are ‘cold’. Make sure you are warming up your body to increase your body's core temperature, blood flow to the working muscles and stretch a particular area of your body that you’ll be working out.

Don’t Just Train Hard, Train Smart Too

Just because you could do a specific exercise 10 or 15 years ago, doesn't mean you can exercise with the same speed and energy today. Be realistic about your training and not focus on what you use to do. "Too much, too soon" can be the number one reason why injuries occur. Gradually increase your time and the intensity of your workouts to prevent those troublesome injuries.

Hydration and Nutrition

What you eat and drink is just as important as your workout. When we sweat, we lose electrolytes which is necessary for muscle contraction and energy generation. Worse case scenario that can happen is dehydration. Is it a bad thing? Of course! Your internal organs can fail due to excessive dehydration. Don’t forget to rehydrate by consuming water. It’s the safest and cleanest liquid to keep your body hydrated.    

Consuming above average amount of a protein-based food source is recommended as it helps you repair your torn muscle fibers. Combine it with a balanced amount of carbohydrates and you’re good to go. Carbohydrates aren’t as bad as most fitness experts claim. They’re our main source of energy hence eating moderate healthy carbs is necessary.

I hope that I’ve provided you with a brief and direct education about how to maintain an injury-free exercise, don’t neglect them because they will matter in the long run.

If for some reason you’ve injured yourself in the middle of training, regardless of the severity, please have a professional check your condition.

Conveniently, you don’t have to go to the farthest reach of the earth to look for one! Dr. David Kieser is a specialist in the spine, hip, and an orthopaedic surgeon as well.

You can check out the link below if you’re in need of a professional to attend to your injury.

https://www.davidkieser.co.nz/

You don't need to make them as thick, in fact I make mine as a slice:

I've adjusted the recipe so it's a carb load feast and super easy to eat - check it out:

Ingredients:

• 50g coconut oil* (or 120g grass fed butter)
• 140g banana flour (or 60g coconut flour and 90g tapioca starch)
• 100g rice malt syrup or coconut nectar
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 70g coconut sugar (or rapadura)
• 100g rolled oats (or quinoa flakes)
• 50g shredded or desiccated coconut

*If using coconut oil, you'll need something else to make it bind.  I use an egg, or half a banana.

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (350°F).
2. Mix all ingredients together well.
3. Scoop bikkies onto a lined baking tray. (Make sure you squeeze each biscuit together well with your palms.)
4. If you're lazy like me, just make it into one big ol' slice, put a second piece of baking paper on top and flatten it with a BBQ flipper.  Take the top piece of baking paper off once you've flattened it.
5. If while flattening it any rides the edges, you're just going to have to eat it...
6. Put in oven for 8 - 12 mins depending on oven and how thick you make them. They should be golden brown.
7. Allow to cool completely before eating as they will crumble.

Have you got Healthy Junk 1 and 2 yet?

50 more junk foods made healthy, just head on over here to get your copy!

Ever wondered what the difference is between coconut flour, coconut aminos, coconut butter, coconut milk, coconut cream, coconut sugar and coconut nectar?

Wonder no more...

Coconuts are extremely dangerous.  If you lay under a coconut tree in a cyclone, one may fall off and conk you on the head.  And the relevance of what you just read?

Absolutely nothing.  It’s a little mind break so you can transition into the good stuff.  Learning about good food sources.  Or maybe we just call them foods, the “good” part is a given.  Any food that is not good for you, should not be called a food, it should be called trash.

Coconuts are used heavily in our cooking because they are amazingly versatile, while being extremely beneficial to human consumption, the processing is very simple (most can be done at home) and they are really cheap.

Apart from thousands of years of Eastern medicinal claims, the coconut has been given a modern thumbs up because it is one of the only sources of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) on earth.

MCTs are fat.  A saturated fat (gosh!).  But unlike other fats, they are inert (don’t change composition in the body - think cholesterol = high blood pressure) and they don’t even go through the same metabolic pathway (they aren’t processed through the lymph system). This means you feel fuller quicker, and you can slip into ketosis without even realising it, because your body has an abundant supply of easy to use fats.  Put simply, ketosis is when your body burns fat instead of carbs.

Eating coconut flesh and it’s processed products like coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut cream (and concentrate), coconut flakes and coconut flour has been proven by much smarter people than us, to reduce body fat and generally make you a healthier person.  Cool, right?

So how does it all work?

Get a coconut, and smash it open.  The liquid inside is high in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals as well as electrolytes and sugar.  Just be careful when buying it as a “water substitute” – it still has sugar in it, so don’t be thinking you can chug it all day while you sit at your office desk. Water is the best substitute for water.  But if you’re an endurance athlete, coconut water is better for you than chemical, sugary crap called Powerade or Gatorade.

Now that you’ve poured out the water (called coconut water), we’re left with the white flesh (called coconut meat).  If you dry this, you can grate it (makes coconut flakes also called shredded coconut). If you blend coconut meat for a long enough time, it turns into coconut flour.  If you blend coconut meat with water, then pass it through a sieve or nut bag, you get coconut milk.  (or you can just do it with the coconut water and the coconut meat while it is still wet.)   If you let coconut milk set in the fridge, you can skim the hard top layer off (called coconut cream or coconut butter).

You now can make coconut oil (virgin coconut oil) by pressing the flesh left in the nut bag with a screw press.  This is a time consuming process, so just buy coconut oil.  Please make sure it is virgin coconut oil, because any other coconut oil uses solvents like hexane to extract the oil.  Cold pressed and virgin are good words to look for on your food label.

Coconut nectar is not made from a coconut, it is actually made by draining the flower of a coconut palm.  It is a sugar, but it is low GI (diabetics use it a fair bit).  You can dry coconut nectar to make coconut sugar.

Finally, if you ferment the raw sap of a coconut tree, naturally aged and blended with sun dried sea salt, you get coconut aminos, which taste very similar to soy sauce, if not as salty.  You can buy coconut aminos from health food shops, just make sure they don’t sell you the soy ones…

For great tasting recipes featuring the star of the show, coconut, look at our cookbooks.